Yaşar Yakış

President, Centre for Strategic Communication; former Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Turkey, Ankara

Born in 1938. Studied Political Sciences in the Ankara University and joined the diplomatic service in 1962.

He served in Turkish Consulate General in Antwerp, at the Turkish Embassy in Lagos, Nigeria, followed courses in the NATO Defence College in Rome, served as Counsellor at the Turkish Permanent Mission to NATO in Brussels and Counsellor of the Turkish Embassy in Damascus.

In 1988 he became Ambassador to Riyadh (Saudi Arabia) and in 1992 Deputy Under-Secretary in the Turkish h Ministry of Foreign Affairs in charge of economic affairs. He became Turkish Ambassador to Cairo in 1995 and Permanent Representative of Turkey to the United Nations Office in Vienna in 1998.

In 2000 and 2001 he taught “Turkish Foreign Policy” in Bilkent and Hacettepe Universities and “Water Diplomacy” in Hacettepe University.

Retired in 2001 and became founding member of the Justice and Development Party. From the date of the establishment of the party to the general elections of 3 November 2002 he served as Deputy Chairman of the Party in charge of international relations.
He was elected Member of Parliament in 2002 and became Minister of Foreign Affairs (2002-2003).

He participated as the government representative in the European Convention that drafted the European Constitution.
He served between 2003 and 2011 as the Chairman of the EU Committee in the Turkish Parliament and co-Chairman of the Turkey-EU Joint Parliamentary Commission and between 2007 and 2011 as the Chairman of the French caucus in the Turkish Parliament.

He was columnist in the English language Turkish daily newspaper Today’s Zaman from October 2013 to February 2016.

He is columnist in the English language Saudi newspaper “arab news” since February 2017.